Voices of Resistance: Muslim Women on War, Faith, & Sexuality

On Saturday April 21st at 7pm there will be the Montreal Launch for “Voices of Resistance: Muslim Women on War, Faith, & Sexuality” (in the York Amphitheatre (EV 1.615) at Concordia University, located at 1515 St. Catherine St. West). The launch will feature readings and discussion by contributors, Shadi Eskandani and Nuzhat Abbas, followed by a book signing.

Nuzhat Abbas is a writer based in Toronto, Canada . She was born in Zanzibar , educated in Karachi and immigrated to Canada in 1981. On receiving Canadian citizenship, she promptly left to work in Spain, Turkey , and the UK , and later studied for several years in the US. She returned to Toronto in 1999 and since then, she has published literary non-fiction, reviews and poetry in Fuse, THIS magazine, CV2, Herizons , the Globe and Mail as well as Znak (inPoland). At present she is working on a novel as well as a book of essays about Zanzibar. She has taught literature at Ryerson, OCAD and George Brown College and currently works as an educator and consultant on anti-oppression, human rights and equity issues.

Shadi Eskandani was born in Tehran, Iran , in 1978, a few months before the Islamic Revolution. She spent her formative years in Tehran until her family's emigration to Canada in 1987. Shadi has completed a Masters degree in social anthropology, and is pursuing a degree in education. She works for an education support program for youth in a marginalized community in Toronto , and spends the rest of her time writing. Shadi is currently working on publishing a collection of her poetry.

Edited by Sarah Husain, “Voices of Resistance” is a groundbreaking collection that explodes current contentions about Muslim identity, gender, war, and citizenship. Muslims—literally, “people of the book”—must seek knowledge wherever and however they can. As the prophet Mohammed sat in a cave of Mount Hira, the first command he received from the angel Gabriel was “Iqra!—Read!” The Quran instructs that obtaining knowledge is integral to one's spiritual practices.

Hailing from Yemen, Iran, Palestine, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand, China, Canada, and the United States, the contributors to Voices of Resistance also insist on a politics and spirituality that command knowledge—but not dusty facts fixed long ago. They demand knowledge that is fluid, contextually engaged, and dynamic. And in their pursuit, they are sharing wisdom of their own. They engage in conversation concerning their bodies and their communities and share compelling stories: a woman mourns the death of a cousin killed in a suicide bombing; a transsexual man remembers with fondness the donning of the veil he no longer wears; a woman confronts sexism and hypocrisy on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia; several experience being judged on the basis of skin color and political and religious affiliation that is far more blatant and ubiquitous since the September 11 attacks.

This event is co-presented by QPIRG (Concordia & McGill), the 2110 Centre for Gender Advocacy, the Concordia Co-op Bookstore, and the Simone de Beauvoir
Institute.